Many people suffer from hearing impairment and vision impairment. Assistive technology, such as Braille, speech recognition software, hearing aids, cochlear implants, and closed captioning, can assist those with hearing or vision impairment, and other technology-based solutions have improved the daily lives of those who have hearing and vision impairment. Assistive technology assists those with disabilities in not only realizing basic necessities, but also in enjoying leisure activities, such as watching television or movies. For example, subtitles or captioning may help those with hearing impairment watch a movie or television show. As another example, audio narration may help those with vision impairments enjoy media productions. Other attempts, including enhanced audio, smart glasses, and other assistive technologies have been suggested to assist those with hearing or vision impairment enjoy audio and video content.
Installing assistive technology devices in a venue, such as a movie theater, helps those with disabilities enjoy leisure activities, such as watching a movie in the movie theater. Adding the assistive technology to a venue, however, may come at a great cost to a company or person that runs the venue. The high investment cost required to install assistive technology in a venue may discourage venue owners from using the assistive technology in their venue. Without assistive technology, patrons with hearing or vision impairment may not be able to enjoy the leisure activities in the venue. The patrons with hearing or vision impairment may be frustrated by the lack of accommodation, and the venue may lose revenue by excluding those with hearing or vision impairment.
In an example of a conventional movie theater, FIG. 1 illustrates the high cost and complexity required to include assistive technology in a conventional movie theater. A movie theater 100 includes a projector 110, a screen 114, speakers 112, caption devices 140, an audio receiver 145, wiring 150, and a wireless antenna 126. The projector 110 displays content provided from a content server 120 on the screen 114. The audio sound track of the content is emitted through the speakers 112.
Theater goers without disabilities are able to enjoy the content by watching the screen 114 and hearing the audio sound track through the speakers 112. However, members of the audience with disabilities may need assistive technology to enjoy the content. The members of the audience with hearing impairment may use the caption devices 140, which may be included on a back of a seat or mounted on a bar in front of a seat in the theater 100, to see subtitles for the words spoken on the screen 114. The members of the audience with vision impairment may use individual audio equipment 145, which may include wired or wireless headphones, to hear an audio narration of the events happening on the screen 114.
In order to provide captions and audio narration to the caption devices 140 and the individual audio equipment 145, an assistive technology server 125 transmits the captioning and audio narration data through the wireless antenna 126 and/or the wiring 150. The assistive technology server 125 synchronizes with the content server 120 so that the captions and audio narration matches the content shown on the screen 114.
As shown in FIG. 1, an additional server and a plurality of additional equipment is included in the theater 100 to provide assistive technology. Also, because a theater cannot anticipate the amount of demand for the assistive technology, the venue may need to provide caption devices 140 and individual audio equipment 145 for each seat in the theater 100. Also, the more wired devices included in the theater 100, the more wiring 150 must be included in the theater 100. Other hidden costs may be included, such as the cost to compose specialized captioning tracks formatted for the theater's equipment. The wiring and equipment can be very expensive, especially if the venue has multiple screens and large theaters.
Thus, a method for a venue to provide assistive technology at a lower cost is desired. The method of providing assistive technology should also be easily applied to any venue, even including a home. Preferably, the method should require minimal installation cost and time.